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Jrayjoker
As loong as they can take the inherent abuse, lol.
Athenor
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Nah. They did what WotC does. They listened to the vocal minority and didn't bother to ask the majority. If they had, they would have tooled it in such a way as to allow for all levels without the requirement of adjustment. As it stands, my typical NPC should be able to beat the players unconcious and sell them as sex slaves.

Do you have ANY clue how your characters would be converted to this new system, though?

I dunno. The prospect of doing more with less stats = me being able to throw NPC's at someone easier. I have a thing for fodder, after all.

And come on, guys. I love knowledge skills, and used them as much as I could... but seriously.. you don't need nearly as many as SR3 allowed for. Knowledge skills should be used to give you a DEFINED benefit... something tangable. In SR3, I didn't get that feeling with 90% of the skills.
Sabosect
QUOTE (nezumi)
If your only complaint is PCs being underpowered, there's a pretty easy way to fix that with point-buy. Simply give them more points. As long as they've tested the game with higher power characters, the fact that your starting level characters are weaker is actually a good thing. After all, with SR3it gets very hard to play it with a group of 60 BP characters, but with 200 BP characters it's much easier.

So now we can do a street campaign or a high-level campaign much easier (in theory).

Yeah, but here's my problem: I not only have to fix the system, but every supplement they put out as well. And I automatically can't try any adventures they publish due to those being too easy. In effect, having to fix the system by increasing points effectively means my players never get a chance to attempt dealing with any character from any of the supplements without me spending extra work on them.

In theory it is easier, but in practice I must test the points to see if each increase is just enough.
Sabosect
QUOTE (Athenor)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 01:39 PM)
Nah. They did what WotC does. They listened to the vocal minority and didn't bother to ask the majority. If they had, they would have tooled it in such a way as to allow for all levels without the requirement of adjustment. As it stands, my typical NPC should be able to beat the players unconcious and sell them as sex slaves.

Do you have ANY clue how your characters would be converted to this new system, though?

I dunno. The prospect of doing more with less stats = me being able to throw NPC's at someone easier. I have a thing for fodder, after all.

And come on, guys. I love knowledge skills, and used them as much as I could... but seriously.. you don't need nearly as many as SR3 allowed for. Knowledge skills should be used to give you a DEFINED benefit... something tangable. In SR3, I didn't get that feeling with 90% of the skills.

Actually, yeah, I have a pretty good idea. The problem is that the game type I run not only doesn't convert well, but is outright incompatible. I run a high-powered, each-character-is-a-pro game. If the characters are not damned good, they don't survive. And even with them damned good, we lose one to two characters a session. These people are dealing with the corporations on a much more in depth level than your average punk on the street.
nezumi
QUOTE (Sabosect)
QUOTE (nezumi @ Aug 17 2005, 02:43 PM)
If your only complaint is PCs being underpowered, there's a pretty easy way to fix that with point-buy.  Simply give them more points.  As long as they've tested the game with higher power characters, the fact that your starting level characters are weaker is actually a good thing.  After all, with SR3it gets very hard to play it with a group of 60 BP characters, but with 200 BP characters it's much easier. 

So now we can do a street campaign or a high-level campaign much easier (in theory).

Yeah, but here's my problem: I not only have to fix the system, but every supplement they put out as well. And I automatically can't try any adventures they publish due to those being too easy. In effect, having to fix the system by increasing points effectively means my players never get a chance to attempt dealing with any character from any of the supplements without me spending extra work on them.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

You have a group of cutting-edge professionals, so now you have to up the damage codes on all the guns? That's silly. You can just buy the guns with the higher availability, like you could in SR3 when you hit the 100, 200 or 500 karma marks. Does masking or spirit powers need to be retooled to deal with tougher characters? Of course not! Make the NPC with masking a higher level initiate, make the elemental of a higher force.

The ONLY thing you should have to retool, assuming they made sure the game offers plenty of room for PC growth, should be the adventures, and really, that isn't very hard at all. Add a couple points to each NPC stat, up the TNs or just buy the higher level missions.
Ellery
QUOTE (nezumi)
So now we can do a street campaign or a high-level campaign much easier (in theory)
Er, no, I'd say not. SR3 works fine for a street level campaign, and it works fine for a high level campaign. It's a little unstable if your important skills go below 3 (not enough dice--results get rather spastic), but the general principle of the rules works in most cases.

With SR4, bonuses and penalties that are crafted for a street-level campaign will grow increasingly irrelevant in a high-level campaign because the number of dice involved is so small compared to how many the big boys have to throw around. So you'll lose the importance of modifiers in the high-level campaign. One of the nice things about SR3 is that even if you're a firearms badass, it still really hampers you when you can't see. There's something that just feels right about that, to me anyway, and that's almost certain to be lost to a sizable degree with the new system.
Cain
QUOTE
If your only complaint is PCs being underpowered, there's a pretty easy way to fix that with point-buy. Simply give them more points.

That's not as easy as it sounds. Since there has to be some sort of progressive-cost to these stats, adding a flat 100 points is going to have an unpredictable effect on characters. I mean, what happens if you boost BeCKs from 450 to 550 karma? You might have added a few skills at 6-- or you might have just added a bunch of midrange skills, or what-have-you.

QUOTE
The ONLY thing you should have to retool, assuming they made sure the game offers plenty of room for PC growth, should be the adventures, and really, that isn't very hard at all. Add a couple points to each NPC stat, up the TNs or just buy the higher level missions.

Again, not that easy. Because of the progression, PC growth is going to be slowed and complicated. If you just "add a few points" to the NPC's, you've advanced them well beyond what the PCs have. In short, we can't just use the old inferior-equal-superior ratings anymore; we've got to calculate from scratch.
Sabosect
QUOTE (nezumi @ Aug 17 2005, 02:59 PM)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 02:48 PM)
QUOTE (nezumi @ Aug 17 2005, 02:43 PM)
If your only complaint is PCs being underpowered, there's a pretty easy way to fix that with point-buy.  Simply give them more points.  As long as they've tested the game with higher power characters, the fact that your starting level characters are weaker is actually a good thing.  After all, with SR3it gets very hard to play it with a group of 60 BP characters, but with 200 BP characters it's much easier. 

So now we can do a street campaign or a high-level campaign much easier (in theory).

Yeah, but here's my problem: I not only have to fix the system, but every supplement they put out as well. And I automatically can't try any adventures they publish due to those being too easy. In effect, having to fix the system by increasing points effectively means my players never get a chance to attempt dealing with any character from any of the supplements without me spending extra work on them.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

You have a group of cutting-edge professionals, so now you have to up the damage codes on all the guns? That's silly. You can just buy the guns with the higher availability, like you could in SR3 when you hit the 100, 200 or 500 karma marks. Does masking or spirit powers need to be retooled to deal with tougher characters? Of course not! Make the NPC with masking a higher level initiate, make the elemental of a higher force.

The ONLY thing you should have to retool, assuming they made sure the game offers plenty of room for PC growth, should be the adventures, and really, that isn't very hard at all. Add a couple points to each NPC stat, up the TNs or just buy the higher level missions.

Okay, clarifying.

To be honest, the supplements are all going to be geared around this new system. By fixing, I have to adjust availability of items or simply which availability I am using. The one thing I am facing is the simple fact that I have to look at each item and remember the entire system is specifically geared towards a certain type of play and I am not using it. And, considering a lot of the campaigns I've read about, I'm far from alone on this. I suspect I'm not the only person who is going to find their campaign at odds with SR4's idea of what a campaign should be. The idea I'm looking at is that if they listened to the customers, there should be no need for adjustments at all.

Edit: In addition, there is what the others are saying. I literally have to spend about four or five days testing each adjustment to see if I got it right.
Nerbert
QUOTE
One of the nice things about SR3 is that even if you're a firearms badass, it still really hampers you when you can't see. There's something that just feels right about that, to me anyway, and that's almost certain to be lost to a sizable degree with the new system.

It depends on how low light penalties work. A modifier to a target threshold is a significant penalty, and also accurately reflects that the difficulty comes in hitting your target, not in hampering your own skills.
Foreigner
QUOTE (mmu1 @ Aug 17 2005, 01:54 PM)
M1 Garand, for example. I'm sure some of the local gun nuts can come up with more. wink.gif


mmu1:

Another example would be the Johnson semiautomatic rifle of World War II. It wasn't quite as successful as the M-1 Garand (owing primarily to the fact that the Garand had already been adopted as U.S. military issue (in 1936) when the Johnson was introduced (1941)).

The Garand, as well as the modern Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol, was a gas-operated rotary-bolt design--that is, the propellant gasses were harnessed by the mechanism to make the weapon function.

The Johnson, on the other hand, was a recoil-operated design, using an operating principle similar to the .45 automatic --the barrel had to move rearward for a certain distance in order for the mechanism to activate the unlocking sequence.

The Johnson wasn't quite as robust as the Garand, but it did have one important advantage--a ten-round internal rotary magazine that could be reloaded at any time, using either single rounds or 5-round stripper clips.

The Johnson's main failing was that its mechanism was sensitive to dust and dirt. Another problem was that it was of little use in close-quarters combat, because its unsupported barrel wasn't sufficiently rigid in and of itself to support a bayonet--the bayonet issued with the Johnson resembled the spike-type bayonet normally seen on a late-Eighteenth- or early-Nineteenth- century musket (think of the British "Brown Bess") than the ones normally seen on Twentieth-century military rifles.

The Garand, on the other hand, used an 8-round en bloc clip, which formed an integral part of the rifle's mechanism when inserted; the weapon literally could not be used without it--unless, that is, you wanted to load single cartridges and cycle the action manually.

The Johnson's only real advantage, as far as the U.S. military was concerned, was its removable barrel--it could be removed easily in the field for storage, cleaning, or replacement.

The U.S.M.C.'s paratrooper division was the only branch of our military to officially adopt the weapon. It was especially popular with them because, with the barrel removed, it easily went into a standard paratrooper's canvas weapon-carrying case--one normally used to carry M-1 and M1-A1 Thompson SMGs and M-1, M-1A1, and M-2 carbines--thus providing them with battle-rifle accuracy and power in a relatively compact package.

Oh, and the preferred term is "firearms aficionado" (I'm not qualified enough to be considered an expert--I'm just well-read), not "gun nut", if you don't mind.

nyahnyah.gif

--Foreigner
Sabosect
QUOTE (Nerbert @ Aug 17 2005, 03:08 PM)
QUOTE
One of the nice things about SR3 is that even if you're a firearms badass, it still really hampers you when you can't see. There's something that just feels right about that, to me anyway, and that's almost certain to be lost to a sizable degree with the new system.

It depends on how low light penalties work. A modifier to a target threshold is a significant penalty, and also accurately reflects that the difficulty comes in hitting your target, not in hampering your own skills.

Uh huh. You really think a penalty of +2 to Threshhold is going to affect a guy with 12 Dice, a TN of 5, and an average Threshhold of 4-7?
Sabosect
QUOTE (Foreigner)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 01:56 PM)
M1 Garand, for example. I'm sure some of the local gun nuts can come up with more. wink.gif


Sabosect:[snip]

I'm not the one who said that. I responded to it.
Darkness
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Actually, yeah, I have a pretty good idea. The problem is that the game type I run not only doesn't convert well, but is outright incompatible. I run a high-powered, each-character-is-a-pro game. If the characters are not damned good, they don't survive. And even with them damned good, we lose one to two characters a session. These people are dealing with the corporations on a much more in depth level than your average punk on the street.

And where exactly is that incompatible? Just because this character is more average and underskilled (which isn't really true if you think about the Skill Groups which seem to incorporate every Skill beneath them (Firearms and Martial Arts in her case) what would be quite more expensive if you had to buy them seperately, i believe), it is nowhere proven that every character will be.
Plus you just have to uppen the available Building Points for starting characters and off you go. We do absolutely know close to nothing about how cyberware and other factors calculate in.
High powered campaigns will still be possible with this system.
Nerbert
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Uh huh. You really think a penalty of +2 to Threshhold is going to affect a guy with 12 Dice, a TN of 5, and an average Threshhold of 5-7?

Do you really think that it won't? You do realize that you're just pulling numbers out of nowhere, right?
Dashifen
Ellery: I still don't understand why you feel that PC will be underpowered in SR4 as compared to those in SR3. Unles you're creating NPCs with the third edition rules and PCs with the fourth, then I see no reason why the balance can't be reached. If the PCs and the NPCs all have stats in the 3-5 range, then there is a balance. There's no reason why those same characters can't be rent-a-cops or coporate security special forces with the same stats. It's the tactics, personality, and equipment of the NPCs and, perhaps moreso, the way that the GM plays said characters that makes them into enemies, fodder, or supervillians.
Sabosect
QUOTE (Darkness)
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Actually, yeah, I have a pretty good idea. The problem is that the game type I run not only doesn't convert well, but is outright incompatible. I run a high-powered, each-character-is-a-pro game. If the characters are not damned good, they don't survive. And even with them damned good, we lose one to two characters a session. These people are dealing with the corporations on a much more in depth level than your average punk on the street.

And where exactly is that incompatible? Just because this character is more average and underskilled (which isn't really true if you think about the Skill Groups which seem to incorporate every Skill beneath them (Firearms and Martial Arts in her case) what would be quite more expensive if you had to buy them seperately, i believe), it is nowhere proven that every character will be.
Plus you just have to uppen the available Building Points for starting characters and off you go. We do absolutely know close to nothing about how cyberware and other factors calculate in.
High powered campaigns will still be possible with this system.

Yeah, you might want to read the previous posts before saying that is actually simple to do.

High powered campaigns are still possible, but they require a serious reworking of a large number of items. High powered usually results from being highly skilled in multiple areas, not above average in a couple and average to piss poor in the rest. Having low stats like that and occasionally going up against military regulars is going to get them killed. And, yes, you do have to face military personel from time to time in my games, and often when you face them your objective is what they are guarding. A 3 in Intimidation isn't going to get you passed them by any stretch of the imagination in this system.
Sabosect
QUOTE (Nerbert)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 03:12 PM)
Uh huh. You really think a penalty of +2 to Threshhold is going to affect a guy with 12 Dice, a TN of 5, and an average Threshhold of 5-7?

Do you really think that it won't? You do realize that you're just pulling numbers out of nowhere, right?

Note I went back and editted it.

The reason why I put 4-7 as average Threshhold is that your average character is going to have 6 dice or less to use on most tests. A Threshhold of 7 is about as high as you can get and hope one of the team members can make it. In most cases, they'll be lucky to make 4. A guy with 12 dice (6 from skill, six from stat) isn't really going to be as affected as a guy with 6 by a +2 to Threshhold.
nezumi
QUOTE (Ellery)
QUOTE (nezumi)
So now we can do a street campaign or a high-level campaign much easier (in theory)
Er, no, I'd say not. SR3 works fine for a street level campaign... It's a little unstable if your important skills go below 3 (not enough dice--results get rather spastic),

If 'average or above average' is your definition of a street level campaign, I wonder a bit. As I said, I was talking about a 60 BP game. Below a skill of 3, things get a little wonky. If SR4 is set up to START at your street level, hopefully we can downgrade a step or two without so much trouble and get back to my level (where average skill is 2).

I'm not going to speculate on how hard it is to upgrade in SR4, but presumably they've given us space for character growth.

QUOTE
That's not as easy as it sounds. Since there has to be some sort of progressive-cost to these stats, adding a flat 100 points is going to have an unpredictable effect on characters. I mean, what happens if you boost BeCKs from 450 to 550 karma? You might have added a few skills at 6-- or you might have just added a bunch of midrange skills, or what-have-you.


I'm afraid I don't understand your specific complaint. I've never used BeCKs, but I've never had problems with higher level characters.

QUOTE
Again, not that easy. Because of the progression, PC growth is going to be slowed and complicated. If you just "add a few points" to the NPC's, you've advanced them well beyond what the PCs have. In short, we can't just use the old inferior-equal-superior ratings anymore; we've got to calculate from scratch.


See, this is where proper GMing comes in. If the NPCs are too weak for the PCs, you boost the NPCs (or not, as you wish). To boost an NPC, you just add a few points to their important stats. If the PCs are on the same level as the NPCs or just a little higher, you don't boost anything. Where's the problem? Where are these mysterious calculations coming from?

QUOTE
By fixing, I have to adjust availability of items or simply which availability I am using.


It takes you 4-5 days to adjust maximum availability? Generally I say 'maximum availability at chargen is 10' or 'maximum availability at chargen is 12' or whatever it is I feel is appropriate. I don't have to do any more work than I'd have to have done with standard characters, since there are always certain weapons or items I'm going to have to disallow or fix anyway.

In the end, I daresay that someone in FanPro at some point asked, 'hey, what happens if the PCs somehow survive long enough to acquire X karma? Will the game still work okay?' If I'm wrong, well FanPro made a major screw-up and I won't buy the game (alright, that's a lie). If I'm right, then in theory it shouldn't take anyone a WEEK to adjust the sourcebooks to work for higher level characters because hey, the designers already EXPECTED you'd, at some point, have higher level characters.
Blacken
I've gotta agree with Sabosect here... while I don't regularly play TT anymore, the MUD that I play (see sig) is the equivalent of a fairly high-powered campaign. Older characters have 500+ karma (and 200-karma characters are able to go toe-to-toe with most, but that's another issue). These guys are not going to fight gangers, they are going to be trading friendly small-arms volleys with Lone Star FRTs and those lovely men and women of the UCAS Army. (Sometimes players with older chars will trot them out to said gangerfests, and that just gets icky.)
Foreigner
Sabosect:

So you did.

My apologies.

That's what I get for speed-reading a post after a LOOOONG day....

My original post has now been amended to correct the aforementioned error.

I now return you to your regularly-scheduled Dumpshock Forums....

--Foreigner
Darkness
QUOTE (Cain)
In short, we can't just use the old inferior-equal-superior ratings anymore; we've got to calculate from scratch.

Not quite. You have a definite scale now. It ranges from 1 to 6 (cybermods, racial mods and other things aside for now).
So you know already who's better. And so do the chars. If one has 6 in Pistols (for example) he knows, that (unaugmented) nobody will be his better, only his equal.
(meta-)human physique as limits, which are now represented.
Personally i found the old nferior-equal-superior ratings ridiculous. You could (if you never adjusted those levels) never really beat a member of the Spider Gang in Seattle, because those where listed as superior. You could have a Skill of 12 and he would still be better. Made one wonder why those superiors hadn't taken control of Seattle already. nyahnyah.gif
Nerbert
QUOTE (Sabosect)
A guy with 12 dice (6 from skill, six from stat) isn't really going to be as affected as a guy with 6 by a +2 to Threshhold.

This statement is true. However, the average number of hits with 6 dice is 2. The Average number of hits with 12 dice is only 4. Increasing the threshold by 2 is still marginalizing 50% of your 12 die professional's reliable output.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (mmu1)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 02:49 PM)
Blakkie, you just effectively proved that this isn't the same gun as that. Unless they've seriously modified it. After all, I never heard of an internal magazine requiring spare clips.

M1 Garand, for example. I'm sure some of the local gun nuts can come up with more. wink.gif

Exactly what I was going to say. Clips have been out of fashion for far too long smile.gif

~J
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Athenor @ Aug 17 2005, 02:45 PM)
And come on, guys. I love knowledge skills, and used them as much as I could... but seriously.. you don't need nearly as many as SR3 allowed for.

Are you insane? Have you ever tried actually building a real person with the SR3 chargen rules? Knowledge skills are one of the most massive holes in the system—never mind using active skill points, you'd need to be able to trade them at at least a 1-2 basis to build a typical moderately curious person who's been through formal schooling.

Edit: damn, forgot it was the same thread. Sorry for the double-post.

~J
Sabosect
QUOTE (nezumi)
QUOTE
By fixing, I have to adjust availability of items or simply which availability I am using.


It takes you 4-5 days to adjust maximum availability? Generally I say 'maximum availability at chargen is 10' or 'maximum availability at chargen is 12' or whatever it is I feel is appropriate. I don't have to do any more work than I'd have to have done with standard characters, since there are always certain weapons or items I'm going to have to disallow or fix anyway.

In the end, I daresay that someone in FanPro at some point asked, 'hey, what happens if the PCs somehow survive long enough to acquire X karma? Will the game still work okay?' If I'm wrong, well FanPro made a major screw-up and I won't buy the game (alright, that's a lie). If I'm right, then in theory it shouldn't take anyone a WEEK to adjust the sourcebooks to work for higher level characters because hey, the designers already EXPECTED you'd, at some point, have higher level characters.

Actually, under this system, right now it appears it will. The reason is because I need about 5 days to test each adjustment to point values and then comparing the tests to how they interact with adjustments in availability. With every new item that comes out, I have to test it against the current level of points and see if it fits in with being available or if it would be too powerful for the campaign.

Now, one other item to keep in mind is that FanPro assumes you are starting off as a low-level character. Likely, they have not really tested the higher level stuff completely or have even tried their best to make sure it takes the characters forever to get there. If that is true, someone who starts out as high powered is automatically completely outside their game setup. It's like if someone started out as an epic character in DnD before they made the epic rules.

QUOTE
This statement is true. However, the average number of hits with 6 dice is 2. The Average number of hits with 12 dice is only 4. Increasing the threshold by 2 is still marginalizing 50% of your 12 die professional's reliable output.


Factor in Edge, which allows rerolls of 6s. The results get higher, depending on Edge.
Nerbert
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Factor in Edge, which allows rerolls of 6s. The results get higher, depending on Edge.

What it comes down to is that we don't know nearly enough about mechanics to make any assumptions.
Dashifen
QUOTE (Nerbert)
What it comes down to is that we don't know nearly enough about mechanics to make any assumptions.

Agreed, but baseless speculation and wild leaps of logic are a fun way to pass the time rotfl.gif
Athenor
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
QUOTE (Athenor @ Aug 17 2005, 02:45 PM)
And come on, guys. I love knowledge skills, and used them as much as I could... but seriously.. you don't need nearly as many as SR3 allowed for.

Are you insane? Have you ever tried actually building a real person with the SR3 chargen rules? Knowledge skills are one of the most massive holes in the system—never mind using active skill points, you'd need to be able to trade them at at least a 1-2 basis to build a typical moderately curious person who's been through formal schooling.

Edit: damn, forgot it was the same thread. Sorry for the double-post.

~J

*shrugs*

I operate off the assumption that a Shadowrunner hasn't had blinders to the world around him, unless his char specifically states it.

I only use knowledge skills for two reasons in my game: If something -insanely- obscure needs to be sorted out (most everything else goes under Intellegence), and as a complimentary skill, to supplament my player's abilities in special circumstances (again, not all the time). This strikes a good balance, while making the knowledge skills have some use in my game.

You have no clue how often my gunners took medical and tactical knowledge skills when I put that rule in. wink.gif
Sabosect
QUOTE (Nerbert)
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 03:39 PM)
Factor in Edge, which allows rerolls of 6s. The results get higher, depending on Edge.

What it comes down to is that we don't know nearly enough about mechanics to make any assumptions.

You're going to let a little thing like that stop us? It's always easier to adjust these equations after you've completed them.

With the idea the final stat allows rerolls, it's easy to allow for it to allow rerolls (of 6s) up to the number put in it. This means any 6 you roll provides an extra die.
Gomez
QUOTE (Sabosect)
I run a high-powered, each-character-is-a-pro game. If the characters are not damned good, they don't survive. And even with them damned good, we lose one to two characters a session.


So you run sort of a Call of Cthulhu type Shadowrun game. If you don't kill a few characters off a session it's not good. wink.gif
Ellery
Here's the problem. Suppose you have a modifier for "no light". You want an easy shot to become really tough.

So you consider an average runner with firearms+linked attribute 6. They get two hits on average. For an easy shot, maybe you only need 1 hit normally (you'll hit 91% of thetime). If you raise the threshold by 1, you'll hit 65% of the time. If you raise it by 2, you'll hit 32% of the time. If you raise it by 3, you'll hit 10% of the time. That's a factor of ten difference--that seems like a pretty severe penalty (same as the +8TN on average in SR3). Okay, so "can't really see" is a +3 threshold penalty--the shot requires four hits.

Now let's consider an expert. Firearms + linked attribute 12. They get four hits on average, and they make the shot in the dark...61% of the time instead of 99% of the time. Darkness matters some, but not being able to see isn't that big of an impediment.

Now let's consider a master adept. Firearms + linked attribute + other stuff we don't know about, adding up to 18. They get 6 hits on average, and make the hit 99.9% of the time in the light and 90% of the time in the dark. Darkness, I laugh at thee!

Now let's consider a dabbler with firearms + linked attribute of 4. They normally can hit 80% of the time, but in the darkness they hit 1% of the time. Ah--my doom!--I cannot see!

This is a specific example, but the important thing to note is that every possible example with removing dice or changing the threshold works like this, with somewhat different numbers, but the same trend.

All right. Let's consider the case in SR3. TN goes from 4 to 12 in darkness. The dabbler probably has a skill of 3 and CP of 3, so they hit between 87% and 98% of the time, depending on combat pool; in the dark, that drops to betwee 8% and 15%. The average person probably has 5 or so, and in the light they hit between 97% and 99.9% of the time; in the dark they hit between 13% and 25% of the time. An expert might have 8, and assuming that CP can still keep up, they hit from 99.6% to 99.999% of the time in the light, and 20% to 36% of the time in the dark. Finally, the adept master with effective skill 14--but probably not more than 10 combat pool--hits 99.994% to 99.999994% of the time in the light, and 33% to 50% of the time in the dark.

Let's look at the progression of difficulties:
8% / 13% / 20% / 33%
1% / 10% / 60% / 90%
In one case, darkness is always bad news--you're unreliable. In the other, it goes from "I can't see--I fail!" to "I can't see--no worries!".

Maybe I've just picked SR3 dice to make my case--I mean, those numbers I've pulled out of a hat are pretty subjective since SR3 doesn't have any hard caps and karma awards vary. Let's instead match the number of dice.

SR4 1% success in darkness means a SR3 character has less than one die to throw (defaulting, except you can't default when the TN is 12).
SR4 10% is 4 dice in SR3.
SR4 60% is 32 dice in SR3.
SR4 90% is 82 dice in SR3.

So it's definitely a change, and I think it's a change for the worse, because it changes the feel of the game in ways you probably don't want, such as "darkness doesn't much matter when you're shooting at someone".
Nerbert
QUOTE (Sabosect @ Aug 17 2005, 03:48 PM)
With the idea the final stat allows rerolls, it's easy to allow for it to allow rerolls (of 6s) up to the number put in it. This means any 6 you roll provides an extra die.

Alright, but only 50% of your hits are going to be rerolls, and only 1 in 3 of them is going to be a hit. This means you need 18 dice before you can count on rerolls to average you an extra +1 hit. Its a great idea for shots in the dark, which is what sparked this conversation, but I think it supports my stance that changes to threshold are significant.

The reason I gave up so easily is because I remember hearing about a rule that allows you to trade four dice in for one automatic success if your dice pool exceeds the threshold. So even if your thresholds are averaging 5, most average, skilled (6 dice) people can hit once, reliably, 100% of the time. And if thats the case then thresholds are going to have to be very high for them to even matter.

In conclusion, and after reading Ellery's expert analysis, I have to say that I have no idea what to expect.
Kagetenshi
I believe that that was a rule proposed by a random Dumpshocker to guarantee easy tasks for highly-skilled individuals rather than something that's actually been suggested to be in the game.

~J
Ellery
QUOTE
Ellery: I still don't understand why you feel that PC will be underpowered in SR4 as compared to those in SR3.
I didn't exactly say that. I said that I didn't think that SR4 was a good system for playing as wide a range of power levels. And we've been told that typical characters are "street level". So I don't know whether "street level" is underpowered or overpowered or what. The point is that the system will start to break down is you play people who are much more potent than that (or much less potent).
Nerbert
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
I believe that that was a rule proposed by a random Dumpshocker to guarantee easy tasks for highly-skilled individuals rather than something that's actually been suggested to be in the game.

My fragile perceptions of reality are all shattered. twirl.gif
Sabosect
I think that, no matter how we look at it, this is no longer the SR we remember. In this case, I think we have to agree to wait on further info.

Now, consider what Ellery said. If I hate you in SR, I give you a TN of 30 or higher. You can actually hit that with only one die. However, in this game, I give you a Threshhold of, say, 12. You need 36 dice (!) to hit that reliably. This is also ignoring one item the FAQs say, in that some modifiers affect the TN. So, that Threshhold of 12 can also come with a TN of 6. Pretty impossible to hit. Especially if you only have 6 dice to do it with.

I'm restating that to show another item I dislike: The DnD-style PK fests this supports now.
Kagetenshi
Er… proof.gif where did it say TNs could be modified?

~J
Samoth
ARES PREDATOR IV
Ellery
I doubt that it will be possible to raise a threshold to 12 except by pulling a crazy number out of thin air. You could always pull TN 120 out of thin air in SR3 if you wanted, which has about a three-in-a-ten-thousand-trillion chance of success per rolled die. You're about as likely to win the lottery. Twice. In a row.

Maybe it will seem less blatant if you only have to say "12" instead of "120" to get the same effect, but basically, if GMs want to kill players arbitrarily, and the players stand for it, there's not much you can do about it by manipulating the rules.
JongWK
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Now, one other item to keep in mind is that FanPro assumes you are starting off as a low-level character. Likely, they have not really tested the higher level stuff completely or have even tried their best to make sure it takes the characters forever to get there.

<Vader> "I find your lack of faith disturbing..." </Vader> cyber.gif
Gomez
My impression was that combat was a opposed affair with the attacker making a Weapon skill + Attribute roll vs. the defenders Dodge skill + Attribute. With possible modifiers to your dice pool for things like cover and such.
Sabosect
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Er… proof.gif where did it say TNs could be modified?

~J

Yeah, yeah. Hold on.

I misread this:

QUOTE
A. Basic success tests are made rolling your dice pool against a fixed target number of 5. The target number never changes. So each 5 or 6 that you roll equals a “hit.” Success is determined by the number of hits rolled. More difficult tests require a higher number of hits to succeed.


Happens from time to time. That's why I like these little chats.
Gomez
QUOTE (Sabosect)
I'm restating that to show another item I dislike: The DnD-style PK fests this supports now.

So the one or two characters killed per session in your games is a different kind of Player Kill fest.
Nerbert
QUOTE (Gomez)
My impression was that combat was a opposed affair with the attacker making a Weapon skill + Attribute roll vs. the defenders Dodge skill + Attribute. With possible modifiers to your dice pool for things like cover and such.

This is a very important point, because if it is true, then the % chance of getting any old hit becomes les important, and what becomes more important is how many hits you are achieving in total.
Sabosect
Ellery- Threshhold of 12:

Assuming we start at 4, we add 2 because of random air conditions, 3 for general dislike of you, 1 for the way you are standing, 1 for how you are attempting it, and 1 just because the die said so.

Yeah, I expect people to use logic like that.

Gomez- Yeah. Most of the time, it's because they rolled a 1 on a check when they needed to do otherwise to live. The few other times are suicides to distract enemies while the party escapes.
Homme-qui-rigole
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
@ Homme-qui-rigole, sorry if I offended you in any way, but people do look like their ethnic group in most cases.

It's me that apologize... I misunderstood what you want to mean, english isn't my native language
hobgoblin
hmm, i wonder where this treshold talk is coming from...

my take on the combat system is:

attacker rolls attrib+skill vs 5 - dice for diffrent modifying elements.
the weapon have a fixed starting damage + 1 pr hit on the test.

defender dodge roll.

armor reduce said damage - the weapons armor penetration (yes check it out, there seems to be a stat for that now. its there on the char sheet).

defender then most likely rolls damage resistance on the remaining damage. damage reduced by 1 pr hit on test.

still, thats just my take based on the info gatherd here on thru the pdfs released.
Sabosect
It comes from this:

QUOTE
A. Basic success tests are made rolling your dice pool against a fixed target number of 5. The target number never changes. So each 5 or 6 that you roll equals a “hit.” Success is determined by the number of hits rolled. More difficult tests require a higher number of hits to succeed.
Gomez
QUOTE (Sabosect)
Gomez- The few other times are suicides to distract enemies while the party escapes.

LOL! That made me laugh!

I picture a guy yelling "Look at me! Look at me!!" as he stuck a live grenade in his pants. biggrin.gif

Thanks!
Sabosect
I'd be laughing as well if one of my players hadn't actually done just that.
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